A Quantum Leap of Faith
by MRN
Summary: Chaos, randomness, coincidence. Words that describe the sub-atomic world, her work, and her future. She questions the concepts and laws which govern her universe as fate seems to bring her to a time not her own, to a place unknown, to a man she cannot bear to face.
1. Order

"This is nothing personal."

She looked across the table at their faces, signs of shock, anger, bitterness, hope, and disappointment quickly discerned from their features. She could read their expressions so easily. She always could.

"It's been a few years since the war-"

"It's been _two years_ , Hermione-"

"-Let her finish, will you?"

"-and I don't feel the same…" she chose her words carefully, "…the same _thrill_ I once did during that time. We had a purpose, a real purpose-"

"We _still do_ -"

"-Can you just let her finish?"

"-and I don't feel thrilled when I walk into work, I don't feel excited by what I'm doing, by this world, by this reality, by…by _magic._ "

"You can't be serious." There was no trace of politeness in Harry's tone now. His deep green eyes bore into hers, yet she held his gaze confidently.

"I get it, Harry. I get that this is our world. We come up with new spells, new potions, we seek out dark magic, we push the boundaries of the magical realm. And I thought that's what I wanted – I thought that's what was going to make me happy. And it's not for lack of creativity," she looked at each of them now, "In these last two years I've won _awards_ for creativity, for innovative teaching at Hogwarts at the age of _nineteen_ for Merlin's sake. But there's…" she stared down at her hands now, noticing the tiny blue venules that moved delicately with every flexion of her tendons. She looked up again. "There's a universe beyond this world, a universe full of secrets and mystery and chaos. And the work is challenging – the _physics_ is challenging, it's unlike anything I've had to do before – but there is so much _purpose_ in their work, work that will illuminate worlds beyond ours long after I'm dead." She felt a smile upon her lips. "And they want me. They want me _now_. I'll be in Switzerland for a year, maybe more – the contract is only for a year, but you have to believe me, this is what I've been meant for, this is what I've been _born_ to do-" She heard Ron sigh. He looked at Harry, then up at her, a sheepish grin on his face.

"I hate that you're leaving, Hermione," he met her eyes, "but I haven't seen you this excited in years." He rose from the table, his hand brushing the polished oak as he made his way over to her. "CERN, huh?" He pulled her toward himself in a tight hug. She smiled and thought to herself that it felt good. "Particle _fucking_ physics?" He sighed again and held her at arm's length, his hands soft on her shoulders. "I gotta say, you never cease to amaze me. But I also think you're a bit nutty, y'know?" He released his hands back to his sides, and looked at Harry. "You can't argue. You know that. Let's just plan a proper get together for the holidays, yeah? When you come visit for Christmas, yeah?"

She smiled. "Yeah. Of course."

"I'm off then, mates," he started, grabbing his winter coat from the back of the chair. "We're starting early tomorrow, so y'know, early to bed and all that." He quickly pecked Hermione on the cheek and they heard the door close a moment later.

"You were never happy here, were you." Harry's tone remained flat.

"That doesn't sound like a question."

He nodded, his lips tight. "Was it me?"

Hermione immediately lifted her gaze to meet his. She felt the sting of tears behind her eyes. "Harry…" It was barely a whisper.

"When things went south with Ron, after the war, I figured it was because the heat of the moment was gone, you know? And he felt the same – that you two were better as friends. We all felt that way. I thought it was different with _us_. Everything felt so right, Hermione. _Everything_." He rose from his chair.

"Don't." She whispered, a little more forcefully. He continued to move toward her.

"Why didn't it work? Why wasn't I enough for you?" He was at her back now, as she turned, a hand raised to her mouth to stifle the sound. "I thought you were _depressed_. I was convinced of it. You stopped talking about work. You stopped taking weekend trips with me. You stopped reading for pleasure. _Reading,_ Hermione. I thought you'd gone mental. I even bought you that muggle medicine to see if that would help, help bring you back to me-" His hand fell on her shoulder as he tried to turn her.

"STOP!" She heard herself shout, her eyes wide and swollen with the threat of tears. "Stop. Please. You have to believe me. It was never you." She saw his jaw clench uncomfortably. "Work is a huge part of our lives – we can't go into it every day dreading it, hating it, wanting something more. My boredom, my dissatisfaction – it was seeping into other parts of my life, into my time with you…" She met his gaze again. "I meant it when I said I'd loved you." She put her hand onto his. The touch was electric. "I just hated myself."

She saw his eyes drawn to her lips, and his face hovered barely an inch away from hers. She closed her eyes, heat rising in her chest. He placed a shadow of a kiss upon her left cheek. A chill rippled through her body.

"Come back to me when you are whole again."

She closed her eyes and nodded. Sometime later, she knew he was gone. She didn't hear the door close.

* * *

Tom Riddle did not have a problem sleeping. He was quick to fall asleep; he slept solidly, peacefully, often waking in the same position he was in initially, and he _never_ dreamed. Because he never dreamed, his sleep was never fitful. Because he never dreamed, he always woke refreshed and purposeful. Because he never dreamed, the night of December 12, 1945 was an utter aberration.

He had been told once that people rarely remember their dreams when they wake. But as he shot up from the bed, sheets strewn haphazardly about him, his back soaked with an uncomfortable moisture, his eyes wide and dazed, breath quick and shallow, he remembered the dream as if it weren't a dream at all, as if he had lived it, as if each image and sound and emotion had simply transpired the very day before.

He rose from the bed, slightly dazed, and made his way to the bathroom. The cold water on his face felt refreshing, and grounding; he lifted his eyes to the mirror in front of him, his pale skin almost translucent in the moonlight. _The moonlight_ …

He walked to the window, looking out unto the city streets. In that dream, he was somewhere else. A forest unlike any he'd seen, vast and endless with peaks of gargantuan snow-capped mountains barely visible above the dark outline of the trees. It was night, but the moonlight illuminated his task; he was going to split his soul again, one more step toward inevitability and immortality, one more step toward becoming the unstoppable force he had always imagined. The object…it wasn't clear unto which object his soul would attach, and it wasn't clear the sacrificial lamb who would help him in this task. It wasn't clear because there was a thundering roar, a bright, blinding light that enveloped him and all of the surrounding woods, a searing pain across his chest. He raised his hands to his chest, his fingers burning against what felt like a gaping hole – or a scar? Down, down from his neck – no, his shoulder – across his chest, to his leg, across his being, across his soul. And as soon as it had come, the pain and the light subsided, and he was almost blind were it not for the moonlight, the pale, blue moonlight that cooled his eyes, that cast a delicate shadow on his body, on his scar.

And in that moment of gratitude, in that moment of relief for the gift of life given after almost certain death, he turned his face to the moon.

And he saw the whisper of a woman's face.

* * *

"I think today's the day!" she exclaimed excitedly, a wide grin spreading across her face. She filled her mug with coffee and took a tentative sip; it was dour, but she smiled through it.

"Granger you are insane." Hans Friedrich similarly raised his mug to sip the coffee, but had no qualms about expressing his dissatisfaction with the burnt taste. "You've been here eleven months – we've been trying to do this for forty years! Today is most definitely _not_ the day." But her smile was infectious; he found himself grinning. "A little optimism doesn't hurt I suppose. See you in there. The test is at noon."

"Thanks Dr. Friedrich!" he heard her voice echo from the kitchen as he entered the laboratory. The lab was still in a state of disarray; it was nearly three years into the building of the Large Hadron Collider, far too early to run any experiments, but the third detector was near completion and the teams were interested in a preliminary test. Hans paused in front of the enormous metal door before him as he swiped his access card; he always felt breathless when he entered the particle chamber, at this time already 10 miles in length, hollow, beautiful, and _vast_. He smiled. Her words filled him. _Today's the day_.

Hermione finished her coffee and practically skipped into the laboratory. She heard the overhead announcement detailing the team assignments for the day. She held her breath, hoping she wouldn't be stuck behind a computer screen for the test; and held a muted smile as she learned she would be on the ground at the third detector.

"Erik, Melanie, hello!" The other members of her team were already at their designated station.

"My my, you look chipper today Granger. You think we're really going to see something this time?" the woman turned slowly toward her, adjusting her rimless glasses over her nose. Her hair was a deep brown, always slicked back into a neat bun, but Hermione couldn't help but notice today a few strands were loose and swept haphazardly behind her ear.

"We are _definitely_ going to see something." She saw their skeptical looks but continued anyway. "I know. I know it's only been three years, theoretically we don't have enough length yet, that we've been searching for the Higgs boson for forty years and we have yet to see any semblance of it, but guys—" she held her arms out above her shoulders, "just _look_ at this thing. This is incredible!"

"So say we find it," the young man began, his English heavily tinged by German brusqueness. "What are you going to be most excited about?" He looked back down at the detector, punching in the last of the access codes. "For me, it's going to be the Standard Model. I mean, we found it. We proved it. It works, if we find this particle – the Model predicted its existence forty years ago, and to have that validation…it's going to be amazing."

"You too now?" Melanie quipped, turning to look at her German counterpart. " _Mon dieu._ "

"I don't know," began Hermione. "I don't know what excites me more – that it validates decades of scientific theory or…" She looked at the gargantuan chamber before her, stretching miles beyond what her human eyes could fathom. "For me, it's about the beginning of the universe, you know? That first millisecond of time when our universe was born, the inflationary epoch, before that massive expansion of the Big Bang. This would tell us, in some ways, how the universe came to expand exponentially, how it all began." Her voice was soft. "And how it may end."

"I just want proof as to why some of these particles have mass and some don't. And then I can tell the string theorists to _fuck off_."

Hermione and Erik broke into laughter. The excitement was palpable as the teams readied themselves. Hours passed quickly; the team calibrated and re-calibrated the detector at least twenty times. The second reading was always off.

" _Merde_."

"I think we can fix it." Hermione looked up at her team. "Just give me a second – I wrote down a permutation of the original formula in my notebook – it could work if we just make a small over-adjustment."

Her team members nodded. "You don't have much time, Granger. They're set to go in 10 minutes."

"I know, I just left it at my workstation." She sprinted to the transport train, back to her desk, shoveling through towers of notebooks, documents and models. 'There you are – bollocks!" She huffed as she noticed the scientists filing through to the laboratory, heavy metal doors closing behind them. "No no no no no." Notebook in hand, she rushed to the transport train, but Erik and Melanie greeted her with hesitant looks.

"Granger it's too late, I don't think it was too far off though so there's still a chance-"

"You can't be serious! This is a _particle_ , Erik, even the slightest degree of miscalculation can cause us to miss it!" She turned around and marched back to the laboratory. This couldn't be happening. She knew her calculation was precise. She couldn't wait another _year_ before testing it again. _Delay the test_.

"Dr. Friedrich! You have to delay the test, the third detector isn't working right and I can fix it, we just need another few hours-"

"Are you serious?" The director looked directly at her, a look of exasperation etched into his features. "Granger, the sequence is programmed three months in advance – we evacuate small towns nearby before these types of tests and get governmental approval from _three countries_ to run this, this is what we've been planning, we can't just ' _delay the test_ '!" He turned back around to face the metal doors. "The first two detectors are working beautifully anyway. We knew the third was barely complete. It's just a risk we have to take."

She felt the breath stolen from her lungs. Some small part of her argued that he was right. They would have years to test this, decades to complete it, and she would have to be patient. They already waited forty years, didn't they?

But she had a way in. She knew she did.

She shuffled away from the crowd of scientists, following the hallway to the transport train. After dropping her off at the third detector, nine miles away from the rest of the team, Hermione stared at the glass wall in front of her. And she apparated.

* * *

A/N: Feeling transiently inspired. May or may not complete it. Enjoy.


	2. Chaos

The dream was vivid and relentless. Sometimes it would come two nights in a row, sometimes one night out of six. And Tom Marvolo Riddle was intrigued.

He began to study the dream; a pad of paper next to his bed was rife with drawings, scattered images that he was able to hold onto minutes after waking. It had been two months, and he now knew the scar as if it existed on his corporeal form: it was 1.5 inches below the left mid-clavicle, extending in a rugged diagonal line across his breast bone, between his pectoralis muscles, just under his right ribcage, over his hip bone, and came to rest on his right lateral thigh. The quality of the scar was difficult to gauge since every time he touched it in the dream his fingertips simply burned with energy; but eventually he felt a raw, raised, irregular mark, five millimeters in diameter, smooth and devoid of feeling, as if it weren't his own skin. The object – the horcrux – seemed to be a piece of jewelry, small, a ring or a necklace, he still wasn't sure. The sacrifice… he knew nothing of the sacrifice, no matter how hard he tried to be cognizant in his dream the searing white light would not allow him to see his little lamb, his chosen victim. But this didn't concern him as much. The most drawings, the most paper, had been used to draw a face. A face that he couldn't quite make out, but a face that he needed to know, needed desperately to see, a face that calmed him, took away the pain, gave him sight and reason. It was so brief, that moment in which he looked at the moon, that he barely had a grasp on the features – and they were obscure, as if he were imagining them, but he continued to draw her as if she were the sustenance for a deeply embedded hunger. Thus far, the most vivid aspect he could discern were her lips – small, soft, and pulled into a hint of a smile.

His routine had been mundane for years, but always with a greater purpose in his after hours activities. Wake up, get dressed, eat, go to the bank, ingratiate himself with his superiors for the chance of promotion, go home, walk or run, clear his thoughts, read, and sometimes, venture out to complete a task. He could socialize if he chose to, but mostly he didn't; most of his interactions were at the bank, or when he felt it necessary to call to order the dedicated group of wizards and witches he had formed in school, for a purpose that would come to fruition very soon, he hoped. Female interaction was similarly limited; he felt he had outgrown the need to charm and trick and succumb to his basely male desires. And now—now he isolated himself further, continuing his routine but trying to get to bed even earlier, anticipating the dream, this dream that seemed to hold secrets, clues, importance, _prophecy_.

 _Is she smiling because she is glad to have helped me,_ he wondered, _or because she knows something that I don't?_

* * *

The alarms went off immediately; the laboratory was drenched in crimson light and the cacophony of horns. Dr. Friedrich jerked around rapidly, meeting blank stares all around him.

"What is it? Where is it? Is there a breach in the reactor? Malfunction in the accelerator? The _magnets?_ _Where is it?!_ " It took him a moment to realize that he was shouting, but barely audible over the intensity of the alarms.

"Sector nine!" Erik shouted. "A breach in sector nine, at the ATLAS detector, an object, incredibly _large_ object, out of place—"

"Did something fall—"

"We need to shut this down, why hasn't the automatic extinguish sequence been initia—"

 _Awaiting activation of Particle Beam Alpha in 60 – 59 – 58 – 57 –_

"Shut this DOWN!" Dr. Friedrich was running to the transporter along with Erik; multiple others were scrambling with the controls. He looked at Erik, terrified. "How did this happen?! ATLAS was your domain—any object out of place may be subject to he particle beam—we are talking about the equivalent of 170 kilograms of TNT, Erik, _fucking TNT_!"

"I don't know – we knew there was something off in terms of the calibration, but ATLAS has been like that for the last two months, and then Granger thought she could—"

Erik paused. Dr. Friedrich was no longer looking at him. His mouth agape, eyebrows burrowed in confusion, he stared at the small creature in the white coat hunched over the particle detector, typing furiously, wildly unkempt hair obscuring her face just the slightest—

"Granger." He whispered. His hands were shaking.

Erik released the gate of the transporter and rushed to the barricade of plexiglass and metal, his eyes glued to her frenetic form. "Granger get OUT OF THERE!" he screamed, "PLEASE! GET OUT!" He turned to Dr. Friedrich, pleading with his eyes, "We have to stop it, we have to abort—"

Hans Friedrich swallowed slowly. "We can't."

 _Particle Beam Alpha initiated. Awaiting activation of Particle Beam Beta in 60 -59 -58 –_

He looked away, hands balled into fists against the barrier. "The extinguish sequence is activated when someone has unauthorized access to a gate, or if someone attempts to enter through the barrier." He looked up again at her, this brilliant protégé who barely seemed to notice they were there, this stubborn, stubborn woman, this beautiful and inquisitive soul. "Granger…she…" He paused, met Erik's gaze and released his breath. "She didn't breach the barrier. She just…appeared there."

She figured they were close. She figured they would find out within seconds. But she was close too. She typed furiously; the activation sequence opened ATLAS's control panel immediately. The detector was enormous; at least forty-six meters long, over twenty in diameter, 7,000 tons of coiled cable, wire and transistors. It was beautiful, and powerful; if they had any chance of detecting the Higgs boson, it would be because of ATLAS.

"You just are too sensitive, aren't you, boy?" She didn't know why she was speaking to the detector, but she smiled to herself as she entered the new parameters. He accepted the sequence obediently.

 _Activation of Particle Beam Beta commencing in 10 – 9 – 8 –_

Time to go, she thought to herself. She closed her eyes and waved two fingers slightly in front of her, feeling the pull of magic cackling between her fingertips, spreading to her arms, throughout the rest of her body. _Concentrate_.

And she breathed out and opened her eyes, expecting to see Friedrich, and Erik, expecting to be chastised, expecting—

 _Nothing!?_ She was still there, still inside the chamber, the hum of ATLAS's relentless coils growing louder and louder, drowning her in a state of sheer panic. "No…" she whispered, frantically looking about, seeing their two horrified faces across the barrier. "NO!" she screamed, running to them, pounding against the glass and metal, "NO! NO! NO!" Tears came to her eyes, blurring her vision, _you just need to concentrate, you just need to think, there's NO FUCKING TIME to think, you're out of time, you stupid, stupid, stubborn girl, why didn't it work, HOW did it not work_ , she pounded harder and harder, blood staining the barricade, but she couldn't feel it—

 _4 – 3 – 2 –_

She released her hands and slumped against the wall. _Of course_. She closed her eyes. _Why did I think I could apparate when the field is being distorted. Why did I think I could apparate with 1,600 superconducting magnets and 96 tons of superfluid helium tearing apart the fabric of space around me_.

The light was bright, white and blinding. She felt a searing pain across her chest. And then… _nothing._

* * *

Four months, sixteen days and nine hours after the dream had commenced, it promptly ceased. He waited five, six, seven, fourteen days to determine if it would return, but it had not. He was once again embraced by the world of cold, empty, black sleep, devoid of images, devoid of sound, devoid of moonlight.

* * *

She remembered feeling cold. _Very_ cold. Her senses returned slowly; first temperature sensation, then pain, then proprioception, then smell, sound, taste and lastly, sight. Cold. Soreness on her chest and hands. Lying down. Leaves, rain, moss. An owl asking his question to the night. Bitterness. Darkness.


	3. Causality

Dr. Hans Friedrich sat on the cold concrete floor until he could no longer feel the backs of his thighs. His head was pressed into his arms, which lay across his knees. The tears came easily at first. And then silence.

The wizards arrived shortly after it had happened. One was a tall, elegant, older gentleman, with a warm smile and distinguished lines that hugged his knowing brown eyes. The other was similarly tall, but younger, more stern, more demanding of information that no one could exactly provide. These two visitors knew magic had transpired in a different realm, and they were there to stop it. But when Erik told them what he had witnessed, one could see the devastation in their faces, the sense of immense loss. It echoed Dr. Friedrich's own sense of hollowness, the gnawing pain that throbbed deep in his chest.

Sometime later he heard the transporting pod arrive, and a woman was speaking. His head remained between his knees, still trying to remember to breathe. Seconds stretched into minutes. He felt himself being raised from the ground, led to the transporter, away from the scene of devastation. More minutes passed. Somehow he could hear words again, coming from the woman, from Melanie.

"ATLAS is picking up an immense amount of activity. Particles that we've never seen before. There is no decay. They are still highly active. Hans… they are registering speeds faster than the speed of light. Hans—Dr. Friedrich— _Hans!_ " She said loudly. "I'm talking about _fucking tachyons_."

* * *

The cold penetrated easily through her skin, weaving her bones into columns of ice; her spine remained rigid and her muscles tensed. She was afraid to move, but the waves of nausea forced her to turn over onto her hands and knees and retch, though all she could produce was dried saliva streaked with blood.

Her hands came into focus, pale and white, buried beneath a half-foot of snow. She quickly became aware of her naked form, laid bare against the elements without so much as a t-shirt or a scarf. Her knees, feet, elbows… everything burned painfully from exposure to the winter wind and freezing rain. She lifted her eyes to take in the landscape before her, towering pine trees painted by a white wind, and in the distance, colossal mountains whose peaks glistened blue in the moonlight.

Something about this place looked terrifyingly familiar, and yet something about it seemed incredibly _off_.

But she hardly had time to dwell on the lingering feeling of familiarity; she needed to _move_. It would be less than twenty minutes before the burning in her fingers and toes dissolved into complete loss of sensation. She had no strength, no energy, no desire, only the raw, base, terrifying need for survival. Hermione began to run.

* * *

The April morning was unusually cold as Tom Marvolo Riddle dressed himself for work. His apartment was quite small and unassuming, and though he'd requested a wood burning oven, his landlord refused to install one unless he paid a higher price for rent. So instead, he cast a warming charm each night, though the duration appeared to only be six hours, after which he would wake, often in complete darkness, pull the covers tightly to his neck and silently curse Mr. Abbott for being _so goddam cheap._

Today, it should have been warmer. Spring had announced itself weeks ago with a collective thaw of the fields and trees; birds began to tell their singsong daytime stories and the owls of the night became quiet.

But on April 21st, 1946, there was a palpable chill in the air.

* * *

She tried not to look at her hands; she kept them buried in her armpits, across her breasts, her head down and bent forward against the rain. Her toes were burning as she ran, lightly so as to minimize the amount of contact her skin had with the snow, quickly so as to bring the most amount of circulation to her cold extremities. She thought about using magic, to clothe herself, to bathe herself in warmth. But her mind was elsewhere, her thoughts muddled, her senses ablaze with a searing pain across her chest; she felt weak, dizzy, helpless. She could barely muster the thoughts for a spell – she wasn't sure she could recall any – let alone cast one without a wand. So she ran to the hill. The hill would give her a vantage point. The hill would give her hope.

And it was with great relief that Hermione saw a smattering of lights down below at the base of the hill, freckled between the tall pines, coming from small cabins – _or were they cabins?_ – the lights glowed like embers, and all she could think about was the overwhelming desire to feel something warm.

She slid most of the way down the slope; she was running out of time and had no patience for careful steps. She could no longer feel her feet anyway, and thus was oblivious to any pain from rocks or branches that prodded at her from beneath the snow. The cabins seemed so close, but she wasn't going fast enough, and now they seemed farther away—she heard herself whisper, "Help", her voice was soft, strained, cold, and again she whispered, but now it was louder, and now she spoke the words, "Help", again and again, and she heard a scream, a terrifying, resounding scream as she collapsed to the cold ground, "HELP! HELP ME!" over and over, until her breath was stolen from her by the cold, dark, merciless night.

"When you say 'she's gone', I'm assuming that means she isn't dead." Harry's voice was loud, stern, commanding.

Dr. Friedrich's eyes scanned over the two wizards, looked down at his desk, then he removed his glasses. His face fell into his hands. "I don't know what has happened to her. None of us do. We only found her blood on the glass and metal barrier, which is because she was pounding her fists against it. We haven't tested the blood, because no one can enter the chamber right now. But there are no traces of her in this facility – it's as if she…she just…"

"Vanished?" he asked, his tone laced with skepticism. "I admit, professor, I don't understand much of what you guys are doing here. But this is my – " he caught himself –"our best friend. You've met her, you know her, you know how special she is." He rose from his chair and leaned over Dr. Friedrich's desk. "Whatever you need to find her, we can help. Just tell us what to do."

"I appreciate the offer, Mr. Potter. I just… I wish I knew where to begin." He sighed, rubbing his eyes gently with his palms. His eyes strayed a moment on his hands. He looked at Harry. "There is something left from when she disappeared. A hub of activity we've never seen before and will likely never see again. No one's gotten near it – and we're not entirely sure what it is."

Harry leaned forward again, and Ron rose from his seat.

"We considered putting an inanimate object in its path, but there is so much energy emanating from her place of disappearance that we are worried we may precipitate a chain reaction of sorts, energy we cannot control."

"What do you mean by that? _Energy you can't control?_ You mean nuclear? Or—"

"An explosion of unseen proportions. Or nothing at all." He met Harry's gaze squarely. "This is unprecedented territory, Mr. Potter. Our team is still running preliminary tests, but these appear to be _non-transient_ particles whose very existence upends everything we know about modern physics, whose existence is _not consistent_ with the laws we have spent centuries discovering. And if these particles are moving faster than light, which it appears they _are_ " he paused for emphasis, "then all of causality is upended."

Harry's brows furrowed as he moved closer to the professor. "I'm not …I'm not sure I follow."

"I know you don't follow. I've spent my life studying particle physics and I can barely follow. But let me put it this way. If there exists an entity which travels faster than the speed of light, it is possible, Mr. Potter…" he took a breath and looked in the direction of the chamber, "it is possible that a signal, an object, _a young girl_ , could have been received before it was sent. That it moved backward in time."

"I'm still not following."

"Mr. Potter, I know. This is very new territory for all of us. What I'm saying is, there is a small possibility that rather than asking _where_ Ms. Granger is," he met his gaze wearily, "we may want to ask _when_ she is."

* * *

Hermione woke from what seemed like a nightmare, her heart racing and eyes wide, only to take in a scene wholly unfamiliar to her. She was lying down on something rather uncomfortable, staring up at a canvas ceiling, struggling to make sense of the voices around her.

"You're awake, then."

The Queen's English resounded in her ears. She breathed a sigh of relief and opened her eyes once more.

"You were in bad shape, miss. Jonathan almost pronounced you dead."

"You know what I always say," a voice rose from her left, "can't say she's dead until she's _warm and dead._ "

The faces came into focus, helmets smattered with dried mud, blue and brown eyes staring down at her. She felt cold, but was covered in a thick, wool blanket which caused her abdomen to itch slightly. She tried sitting up on the cot, and was quickly aided by the two men.

"Take it easy there, miss. Looks like… you've been through a lot, you know?" The one on her left had a hint of a beard, mixed with what she assumed was dirt, and deep blue eyes. His teeth were yellow, and the bottom row was rather crooked, but it somehow made his smile appear more genuine. He was in a uniform, plain, brown, with a tan canvas belt and a small rucksack on his side. "Lance Corporal Ashworth, at your service," he said as he helped her sit up.

"Thank you," she whispered. Her voice was raspy, her throat dry. She didn't care. She only needed one question answered. "Where am I?"

"Just west of Geneva- technically France now," the second man said, "At least, what remains of it," he added with a sigh. Hermione turned to him, a shorter, stouter man with dark eyes but similarly pleasant smile. He offered a canteen of water to her and she couldn't help but notice how dirty his fingernails were. She drank. "Miss, I don't mean to be too forward, but we found you in a bit of a bad state – can you tell us what happened?"

She looked up at the man, and her surroundings started to become more clear. Men were filing in and out of the tent, moving what appeared to be supplies, provisions, and stretchers. "I don't know," she said honestly. Her brow furrowed. "Am I in an army barrack? I didn't think London had an outpost here. In Geneva."

The men looked at each other and began to laugh. Ashworth responded first. "Yeah well I'd say we have a bit more than an 'outpost' here. But we're set to head home. Picking up the injured troops in France first, we should be in England by March, maybe April."

Hermione blinked at their response. "Injured troops. From… a war," she said numbly.

Jonathan raised his eyebrows. "Jesus, woman, where have you been? What happened to you? Yes, from a war, from _the_ war. You know," he said, laughing, "Hitler, Churchill, Nazis, that lot ring a bell?"

Hermione felt herself nodding, but her heart was racing, and a cold sweat broke on her forehead. Her vision seemed to blacken from the edges inward, her breath quickened, and under particularly concerned glances from her two new acquaintances, she promptly lost consciousness.


	4. The Continuum

"Davies, Abbott, out."

She heard a third voice when she woke, seemingly more stern, and curt. A man's face came into focus, similarly covered in dirt and relatively unshaven, but full of sharp angles and deep lines.

"Lieutenant Carr. Pleasure to meet you." He held out his hand, which she took in her own as she breathed in deeply, rising from her cot once again. She looked down at his hand, then at her own self, and noticed she was wearing a rather starchy, oversized brown uniform, presumably borrowed from the smallest of their peers. She felt like she was drowning in its fabric, but relished in the warmth of the uniform, and of the blanket that lay atop her small form. And yet.

One part of her felt cold; or rather, felt like it was not her own. Her chest. The mark. Mangled, scarred flesh, devoid of nerves, devoid of feeling. Foreign. Cold.

"And you are?"

She startled, realizing she was still holding his hand without having said a word. "Hermione—" she said impulsively, then caught herself, realizing that every word, every person she met, every action she took had the potential to derail the future—or rather the past—as she knew it. "—Graham," she finished, assured that the surname was common enough, and her elementary school teacher obscure enough, to not warrant suspicion.

"Miss Graham." He pulled his hand away and stood, the combination of his height and elegant profile giving him an immediate air of authority. "I spoke to Lance Corporal Davies and Abbott. I know how they found you. I know this has been overwhelming for you. I don't know where you came from, but it's clear to me that this war hasn't been easy for you. It hasn't been easy for any of us, don't get me wrong," he paused, meeting her gaze, "but I can't imagine what position you were in that allowed for that—that _mark_ on your chest to happen."

Hermione swallowed hard and looked at the ground. _What did happen?_ _What happened to bring you to this place, to this time? Why?_ She suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of sadness, and isolation; she knew no one, she was alone, and she had to keep it that way to prevent any impact on the timeline. _Is that even how it works?_ She felt the sting of tears in her eyes.

"Miss Graham, my platoon is on a mission to get our men back home. The war is over. We're the cleanup crew. We have hospitals and camps in France we need to visit to get our men back, to take them back to their families. I don't have much to offer you," he said as he took a deep breath, "but I can get you _home_."

She looked up at him. "Home?" she echoed hollowly.

"England. We can get you back to England."

She closed her eyes as silent tears wet her cheeks. "I would like that, I think."

* * *

The next few months passed rather uneventfully. Hermione was placed in the kitchen, tasked with helping prepare food for the men every morning, noon and night. The kitchen crew was boisterous, vulgar, but just entertaining enough to allow her to forget, during the days, how utterly alone she truly was. The night was a reservoir for her tears.

She rarely interacted with the cooks or the soldiers; she was unassuming, quiet, shy. She was the opposite of everything she remembered. She knew nothing, she said nothing, she asked nothing. She hadn't even dreamed about using her magic, for anything. Men were wheeled into the barracks before her, pale, missing limbs, dying. She couldn't help them. They were meant to pass in this time.

Since the day she became cognizant of the date, of her slippage through time, Hermione Granger assumed she could impact anything, and everything, by just being alive. Some days, as she chopped onions or washed the dishes, she felt resigned to her fate, of living out the rest of her life in this world, in this time, dying alone, but preserving the timeline for the future. Other days, especially as the platoon neared the Port of Calais overlooking the Strait of Dover, and the cold ocean air played with her curls and wet her face, she imagined finding her way back, back to her true home, back to her time. _Back to Harry_ , she thought with a sinking feeling of regret in her heart.

* * *

Harry woke to a thin stream of sunlight warming his face. His bright green eyes slowly opened, taking in the world before him. His room was small, but comfortable; his sheets were a deep crimson, his duvet a cream white. _She had chosen the colors, when they lived together, here, in this room._ He tried to picture her face, what she looked like lying there next to him, her small, soft back with its perfectly aligned vertebrae curled toward him. Her hair. It consumed her face those mornings. He smiled.

As he rose from his bed, he absentmindedly rubbed his forehead, and walked to the bathroom to brush his teeth. He realized, he only ever remembered her hair these days. What did she look like, he thought, it had been so long. Since she left for CERN, she promised to visit on holidays but never did. And then she vanished. It had been months. He spit the frothy toothpaste out and rinsed his mouth. Mint lingered on his tongue. _Her face._ He rubbed his forehead again, and looked in the mirror to comb his hair. Harry paused, then pulled the comb through his wild black strands. He left the bathroom to get dressed for work. As an afterthought, he wondered why his scar seemed to be getting lighter only now, after all these years, only now, years after the Dark Lord's death, months after her disappearance, days after he realized that he couldn't quite remember her face.

* * *

She was greeted in Dover by a dense, grey fog and choppy seas; as they neared the docks she felt waves of nausea overcome her. She edged out of the cabin and rushed up the stairs to the deck, pushed the oversized grey wool coat off her shoulders and wretched into the wind.

"Easy there, Graham." The gruff voice of her Lieutenant was quickly recognizable. "Too close to have you get sick on us now. You'd think it would've hit you earlier when we were scrounging for scraps in Reims."

"We still found onions," she managed to choke out, "for some reason there were always onions." She heaved again.

She felt a warm hand on her shoulder, holding her securely, the other wrapped around her still wild and extraordinarily long hair, preventing it from getting tangled in her vomitus. "Thank you," she whispered, her eyes heavy. She collapsed against the hard, wet planks, her body limp in his arms. She heard him breathe out and pull her closer.

"You know, Graham, we've been on the move for four months, and I can't say I know you any better now than the night we first met."

She smiled and leaned against him. "There's not much to know."

"I have a daughter who's roughly your age, you know," he said in a voice she hadn't heard before, soft, quiet. "Haven't seen her in three years." The wind seemed to quiet down; the silence was thick. She felt his chest rise. "They kept asking me to get sent home, for the holidays, to switch out for a bit, but… I didn't really know how to go back. I didn't – I don't – know how to talk about where I've been, what I've seen, who I've lost."

Hermione turned to look up at him, the gentle wind playing wildly with her hair.

"I don't know if you have a home to get back to, love." He met her gaze with knowing brown eyes. "I'm starting to think you probably don't. In some ways, I'm actually jealous. No one to talk to about what you've been through. No one to look at you strangely when you scream in the night. No one to pretend for."

She looked ahead at the approaching docks and closed her eyes. Tears edged out from under her dark eyelashes. She wasn't accountable to anyone here. There was no one to smile for, to lie to. In her time, after the war, they all returned to normality so quickly. They all picked up right where they left off. She tried to too, surrounded by so much love, so much support. But when she couldn't, she had to be "fixed". _But I didn't want to be fixed._

She felt, in that moment, and for the first time in a long time, that she was not alone.

"Graham, you're always welcome in our home. You and Annie would get along right away, though she's quite a talker – but I guess you're a good listener anyway." He stood as the men filed out from the lower decks to help dock the ship. "But if you want to be on your own, we're going to need to settle your wages."

"Wages?" she turned to him suddenly, her brows raised in surprise. "What wages? I worked in the kitchen, and you brought me home."

"Jesus Graham, we don't run slave labor here, this is Her Majesty's Army!" He let out a soft chuckle, "They're waiting to process us when we dock in Dover. We're going to need a place to send your cheque. Four months of labor in the army ain't much, but it will certainly help you find your footing. That is, assuming you want to find it." He winked, and disappeared to the front of the ship. She felt a small, folded piece of paper in her hand.

 _Donovan Carr_

 _23 East Hayes Ln_

 _Fakenham, ENG_

She held it to her chest. She was not alone.

* * *

In his gunmetal grey coat, Tom Riddle appeared to be an extension of his bleak surroundings, his face buried in the wool of his collar as he trudged along the sidewalk in the rain. It was unusually cold, wet and windy; the winds only seemed to gather force as the minutes passed. The sidewalks were sleek with mud and rubble, remnants of the bombings; a few disheveled appearing children played in the puddles that formed spontaneously in the alleys and around the storm drains. He glanced at them with disgust.

On days like this, Tom Riddle longed for the future. He longed for the time that this world would come to an end, and his reign would fix the weaknesses in humanity. They didn't deserve this world. They didn't deserve its beauty, its magic. They proved themselves capable of destruction, and little else. _When I ascend, there will be no muggle children to play in the stormdrains,_ he thought.

His worldview had appeal; he had several fervent followers, but was apprehensive about growing his support just yet. He wanted to nourish his skills, further his studies, emerge stronger than ever before under their noses. He had split his soul twice already and none were the wiser. _And I'll split it again, and again_ he thought to himself. _Until I achieve true immortality._

He rounded the corner of the Leaky Cauldron and entered Diagon Alley. It was eerily quiet; the wind had forced the shops to close their doors, and the few patrons working at that hour had scattered for shelter against the storm. He quickly ascended the large, white staircase of Gringott's Bank, taking care not to slip on the untarnished, alabaster marble.

"You're late."

He looked directly at his goblin supervisor upon entry of the bank, the warm air a welcome reprieve from the storm outside.

"I apologize," he said evenly. "The weather outside was…less than ideal." He forced a smile. This was goblin territory. There had been few wizard apprentices allowed to work in the bank, and fewer still with access to the vaults. Deference was paramount.

"Yes well. The weather has been a little unusual. Not expecting many patrons today, but just in case, you'll be at the front, dealing with exchanges, deposits and withdrawals," the elderly goblin said with a sigh. He turned slowly as he shuffled down the pristine marble hallway. "Hurry along now," he said, turning his head back to reveal a look of annoyance.

"Yes, sir," Tom said under his breath. He hadn't yet figured what he would do with the goblins when he ruled. He considered a purge, but thought better of it later. _They are good with money_ , he admitted to himself. He removed his coat and strode down the hallway, admiring the marble statues, and his elegant reflection in the mirrored walls. Today a peon. Tomorrow a King.

* * *

The winds only seemed to get stronger as they docked on the shore; she could already see several large canvas tents erected just up the beach, with lines of soldiers beginning to form, some carrying the injured, some hobbling into formation alone. She pulled her wool coat tightly against her chest and trudged forward, taking care not to slip on the wet stones.

She didn't know what to expect, or what she would say. She had time to think of a story, a convincing one, but ultimately she didn't _exist_ in this time, and she worried that someone would eventually discover this truth. She felt fortunate that she had come at a time of war, where hopefully many others were stuck in a position like her own – lost, with no papers, no ID, nothing to come home to. _Or no home at all,_ she thought to herself.

A portly blonde woman in a snug uniform greeted her from behind an unsteady wooden table. Her eyes were bright blue, and clumps of mascara stained the bags beneath her eyes. There was a hint of red lipstick on her front left tooth.

"Name, National Identity Card, birth date," she said gruffly, not bothering to look up at the petite, shivering girl before her.

"I… my name is Hermione Graham," she said softly. "I lost my identity card. I was… abroad, in France, and…captured." She looked hesitantly at the woman before her, almost holding her breath.

The woman looked at her sharply. "No card? What were you doing in France?"

"I was with the Resistance," Hermione lifted her chin and spoke confidently.

The woman looked up at her again. "Resistance? You?" She smiled. The lipstick was still on her tooth. "Glad to see you doing your part, Ms. Graham. Good thing you made it out of there alive, too." She sighed and looked down at her papers again, some of which were threatening to blow away in the wind. "Date of birth then? We'll have to start the process to get you a new National ID card. Can't well pay wages without an identity."

She released her breath. "Yes, of course – September 19, 1924." She had practiced saying the date a thousand times in her head.

"Where will you be staying, Ms. Graham? To send the cheques." The woman poised her pen above an official appearing document.

Hermione had prepared for this, but wasn't sure her explanation would be accepted. "I…I—I don't have a place to stay. My parents, and our home, were destroyed during the bombings."

The woman looked up at her again, her face softening. "Any… friends? Your husband? Siblings?"

"All passed," she said quietly, summoning thoughts of her real friends to bring more emotion to her countenance.

The woman shook her head. "Ms. Graham…my name is Doris. Doris Baker. My niece is managing a building for me in London." She sighed. "It's small and there are only a few flats but… if you need a place to stay, I can give you the address and a letter to give to Nancy."

Hermione's eyes welled with tears. "That would be _incredible_ of you, thank you." She reached out to grab the woman's hand but found herself in an uncomfortable embrace across the shoddy wood table. She closed her eyes and let tears fall on Doris' brown overcoat.

"I'll deduct the first month from your wages," she said as she wrote the address and a note to her niece. "After that it will be 20 pounds a month. You may need to get a job soon, but your war wages should suffice for the time being. I can give you one cheque in advance."

"How can I repay you," she asked, her cheeks still wet with tears. "How can I repay this kindness?"

"It's war, my dear. Favors are scarce. Kindness is all but disappeared. Pay it forward."

Her eyes glistened. "I will."

* * *

As the bus trudged along Brick Lane, the wind and rain seemed to grow even stronger. Hermione was exhausted. She exited at her stop and walked quickly down Hanbury Street. The buildings appeared quaint, and somewhat unremarkable. Every few blocks would reveal a scene of devastation, rubble. It was approaching midnight, and she was exhausted.

Doris' building appeared small but cozy; red brick rose among vines of ivy and rhododendron. She approached the entrance cautiously and tapped against the door, then window, then after several minutes of no answer, the door again, this time a little more forcefully.

A fatigued appearing red headed young woman in long cotton button down pajamas answered the door.

"I'm terribly sorry, my name is Hermione Graham, and I met your Aunt Doris and—"

"You saw Aunt Doris?!" Her face brightened and the girl practically pulled Hermione into the warmth of the home. "How _is she_? I haven't seen her in _ages_!"

Hermione pulled the letter out of her coat and gave it immediately to the girl, hoping it would spare her any sort of explanation of who she was or where she came from. She looked enviously at the large brown leather couch that sat in front of the fireplace, longing to fall asleep on something that wasn't a thin cot.

"Oh Aunt Doris, I'm so glad she's doing well," the girl smiled. Her bright green eyes looked up her guest. "So Hermione then – nice to meet you, I'm Nancy."

Hermione smiled and weakly shook her hand. The girl's eyes were large and sincere, and Hermione couldn't help but thing of Harry when she saw their emerald hue in the firelight.

"You must be _exhausted!_ Months abroad in the barracks – come, let me show you your room. I wasn't really expecting another tenant so it's a bit small on the ground floor, but you'll be close to the kitchen, and the fireplace too. Are your things outside?"

"Things?" Hermione said blankly. "Oh. No, I, er, lost a lot of my belongings during the war." She saw a pitied reaction forming on the girl's face. "You know, it's just so much easier to get around with the troops when you're not packing much. I gave so much of it away," she smiled.

This response seemed more acceptable to her host, and she led her through a small corridor and into her room. The walls were a peeling pattern of peach with scattered decorative roses; her bed was small, but snug. There was a lamp on the bedstand, a mid-century gaudy piece with gold starfish on a background of faded turquoise paint.

"This is perfect. Thank you Nancy." She took a deep breath. Her eyes felt heavy.

"Any plans for the morning then?" Nancy opened the closet and dropped a few extra blankets onto the bed, all brown and slightly dusty appearing.

Hermione glanced at her suddenly. Plans. Plans for the morning _. Yes, I have plans_ , she thought, _of course I have plans_. _I'm going to take what's left of my earnings to the bank. I will convert it to galleons, buy a wand, apparate to the school grounds at Hogwarts, carefully explain half-truths about my situation to Dumbledore, who will help me solve this and get home._ She blinked. Four months in this place, and it was honestly the best plan she could come up with. There was no Large Hadron Collider here. Oppenheimer lived in this time, and so did Einstein, but how would it ever be possible to get in touch with them, and what could they even do? They had predicted this possibility, but they weren't the engineers. They couldn't recreate it. And it could hardly be explained anyway with their knowledge anyway. She'd been thinking about what happened every day since she came to this time, and there was something about the timing of it, the warped magnetic fields infused with energy combined with _her_ magic. How had the energy not annihilated her? Torn her apart? Her eyes widened. _It didn't. It didn't tear me apart. It tore the space around me apart. A hole. In space._

"Hermione?" Nancy squinted at her in the sallow light of the room.

 _A hole that might still be open_.

"Oh," she refocused her gaze suddenly, "Yes. Tomorrow. Well, I suppose I should start looking for a job, and probably need to get some clothes and a few toiletries." She smiled.

"That sounds perfect. I think I saw an opening for a waitress position at the diner just a few blocks from here. It's called Harrington's; they're always busy but the food isn't so great if you ask me." She turned to the door, then looked back at Hermione. "One more thing…"

"Yes?"

"We've got to do something about your hair tomorrow."

Hermione chuckled, and nodded. "Goodnight, Nancy."

"'Night."

* * *

A/N: Slow updates, I know. Probably best to read in its entirety, sometime in the future when it's done…


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